In this shitty little country
by Hannahzzz
Summary: Enjolras could not pinpoint the exact moment it started. Just the moment he noticed. E/É, Modern Au, swearing


**Modern AU set in Belgium**

Enjolras could not pinpoint the exact moment it started. Just the moment he noticed.

* * *

The first time he saw her, she was hanging after Marius. She was a tiny little thing, with plain and slightly worn and washed out jeans and a tired looking hoodie. He didn't think anything of her, she was just any other girl, and he had better things to think about.

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_

The second time was on his way through the busy main street, with all the busy people and tourists; he was surprised he even noticed her. Maybe he wouldn't have at all if it wasn't for the incredible zoom on his camera. She was walking alone, and in the sweltering heat of late spring, she was equipped with a pair of cut of jeans and sunglasses that looked like they had seen better days. Later that night though, he caught himself thinking that in the sunlight her hair, though messed up and carelessly hanging around her shoulders, was a rather pretty shade of brown with tints of red in it. He wished he had snapped that photograph, instead of hesitating. Frowning, he rolled over. He had better things to think about.

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_

Her name was Éponine, he found out a week later, when Marius introduced them. It was a pretty name. He watched her as she sat down in one of the seats in the back, behind the little kiddie games on the second floor of the McDonalds on la Grande-Place in Mons. She appeared to be less focused on his speeches and more focused on Marius, who was trying –and failing – to discreetly text his girlfriend under the table. This angered him for some reason. Enjolras was not too mad about the texting, it had happened regularly, and Marius still was just as involved with the politics as ever. Neither was he bothered by the fact that Éponine was obviously not listening. No. He was annoyed that the girl was completely in love with Marius, while Marius was ignoring her, even though he was the one who had dragged her to the meeting in the first place. Enjolras blinked. When had he picked up on that? Why did he care? Did he even care? He found out that, no, he did not, and continued his speech about maintaining the country. This whole internal battle/monologue/what-ever-it-was, took him just a couple of seconds, and no one seemed to notice. They all just stared at him, like they usually did, with respect in their eyes. Maybe that was why he liked Marius so much? Because while everyone else never seemed to have any counter points against Enjolras, or his cause, Marius was not afraid to put his input, and did not look at him like he was some childhood hero of some kind. They were best friends after all.

When he finished, he glanced at the brunette. She was talking to the young boy who often came to the evening meetings. (Gavin, Gavrich? Gavroche?) For a split second, he wondered if Éponine would debate with him and let her opinions be known, but then he shrugged it off. He had better things to think about.

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_

Gavroche was her brother. Enjolras had no idea why he picked up on this. It was such a trivial fact, but he still could not help but compare them. Gavroche was spirited and mischevious, with blonde hair and blue eyes, while Éponine was more shy and polite, and her eyes were brown with a little bit of golden in them in the sunlight. He noticed yesterday, when he had met her in the main street again, without sunglasses this time. She had bumped into him, muttered "Sorry Monsieur," and run off into the crowd again. It was a week after they had been introduced, and she came to every meeting that week, although she always looked bored out of her mind and stared at Marius during the whole thing. Tonight he'd had enough though. It really annoyed him that she would just sit there, meeting after meeting, and stare at Marius like a love-sick fool. After his speech, Marius left at once, muttering something about meeting Cosselle or something, and Éponine looked so alone and utterly heartbroken to be left by herself with strangers without as much as a goodbye.

She fretted for a bit, looking around, probably for Gavroche, before her eyes met his and he approached her. Her eyes narrowed and darted to the stairs, as if calculating if she could make it down them and out the door, before he reached her table. Seeing the amount of rowdy drunk students blocking her way, she deemed the escape plan doomed, and faced him again. Their eyes met again and she held his gaze as he came closer to her table, neither averting their eyes, as if doing so first would mean defeat. He looked down first, after having stood there for a full minute before she snapped at him.

"What?" He looked down at the chair opposite her, and sat down.

"Mademoiselle, I-"

"Éponine." She cut him off. He looked at her for a split second, before accepting.

"Éponine, I have noticed that you've come to the last seven meetings." He paused. She raised her eyebrow at him, questioning where he was going with this.  
"I just wondered why you bother, seeing as my speeches only seems to bore you." She raised the other eyebrow before bringing them both down. Enjolras was starting to wonder if this entire conversation was going to be between him and her eyebrows, when she rolled her eyes and answered him.  
"So what? Is it illegal to eat at McDonalds now? Is this super cool club of yours so super cool and awesome that nobody who's not super cool and awesome is allowed to eat their freaking chicken nuggets in peace?" She was being sarcastic, and mean, and completely unfair. She knew he had only been commenting on her behaviour because he found it rude, and therefore she was the one who was rude first, so she had no right to be rude now. If Enjolras had thought about this irrational logic for a few more seconds, he might not have said what he had said next.

"Eat all the chicken nuggets you want, but you might want to focus more on actually getting them into your mouth, you got ketchup all over your face. What? Too busy staring lovingly at Pontmercy to aim?"

She looked like he had slapped her, but to her credit she recovered quickly. Face calm and eyes furious, she stared at him. "Screw you, idiot." She said and rose from her seat. As she walked down the stairs she turned and shouted back at him "The speech you made was stupid anyway. Like the people care enough about this shitty country to join your stupid protest." He gaped at her. Had she actually paid attention to him? Had she seriously dragged her attention away from Marius for a few minutes to pay attention to _him?_ Enjolras pondered this for a second, before he shut his gaping mouth and frowned yet again. Why did he care what she thought anyway, she had probably only heard a part of his speech, she had no right to judge all his views based on one meeting.

Idly, he wondered to himself why he never realised she was related to Gavroche, since he clearly had his spirits and stubbornness from her. It didn't really matter anyway. He had better things to think about.

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_

"Oui, Marius, I'll do it on my way home." Enjolras looked up from his camera the second he heard her voice. He could see Éponine and Marius standing at the top of the stairs, her leaning against the railing, and him holding out an envelope to her.  
"No, please, Éponine!" Marius whined "I need her to get it right now! Before her overprotective dad gets home and answers the door." Enjolras rolled his eyes, Marius' beau-of-the-week, Courgette, was all he had talked about lately. Apparently, he had seen her pat the monkey's head* on the grand-place a few days ago, and somehow was now a firm believer in love at first sight. Unluckily for Éponine, Marius had spotted her exchanging a few words with the girl. Even after giving up the girl's name, and number, Marius still hadn't left poor Éponine alone. Yesterday, he had sent her to Colette's house with roses and handwritten poems, and now he was trying to send Éponine with the drawing he had sketched of Cassette's Facebook picture. He had been showing it to everyone all day, and Enjolras had to admit it was a good drawing but made the blonde girl look more angel-like than human...

"Oh, honestly! Marius! Her dad is not that bad, and he doesn't get home for another thirty minutes, which gives you plenty of time to get there and deliver this!" Éponine snapped, which was unusual behaviour from her when Marius was around. Enjolras could see she was finally getting fed up with Marius' nagging, and he smiled to himself. Looking over at Marius he saw that his friend was not going to give up that easily. Sighing, Enjolras put his book down and made his way over to the pair.

"Éponine, you know that I don't know the streets as well as you do! I would never make it on time! Please, 'Ponine, you have to do this! For me, please..." Enjolras could see Éponine's resolve crumble, and as her eyes softened and her hand hesitantly reached out for the big envelope, Enjolras stepped in for her. "Marius, I am pretty sure that Éponine has better things to do than to run around town with your little love notes." Marius looked annoyed at his interference, and Éponine fixed Enjolras with a glare that was midway between shameful and murderous. She snatched the envelope out of Marius' hands, spit out "mind your own fucking busyness" and made her way down and out.  
Enjolras did not stop to think, but turned on Marius the moment she was out of earshot. "What are you trying to do?" Marius looked bewildered. "I am sending Cosette her drawing... What the fuck is your problem?"  
Enjolras opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out. What the fuck _was_ his problem? He stood there looking at Marius for a moment, before finding he did not have an answer to his question. He felt his cheeks getting warm and flushed and he clamped his mouth shut. Marius, never having seen Enjolras lost for words, frowned at him. Without another word, Enjolras spun on his heel, and walked down the stairs, following Éponine out. He did not realise until he had walked around the corner, that he had forgotten his books and camera upstairs.

_Drat_. He would have to wait till Marius left before he could return and collect them. He was too proud to get them with him there. _Fuck_. Without his book to distract him, he started wandering around the streets around McDonalds, thinking of Marius' question. He had no idea why he felt the need to stand up for a girl he hardly knew, but a tiny part of him disagreed. He had seen the look on her face, the utterly heartbrokenness in her eyes and knew Marius hurt her every time he treated her like his personal messenger. But why did he care? He didn't of course! _Liar_, the tiny part of him said, but he ignored it.  
It took a good 15 minutes, until Marius left McDonald's. By some miracle his books and camera had been left alone.

It happened that night on the way home, that night changed everything.

He heard a girl scream, instantly instinct and adrenaline kicked in and he ran towards the sound. He saw a man his own age, maybe a couple years older, dragging a girl into the darkness of the alley. Enjolras didn't hesitate, but ran towards them, he used the camera already in his hands and took a picture. The flash blinded the attacker, and Enjolras hoped he got the bastard's face. With adrenaline fuelling him, he punched the man, and dragged the girl out of his loosening grip. It happened so fast, that both Enjolras and the man stood there confused for a second. The girl took this opportunity to run off, her pink and blue dip-dye ponytail bobbing as she ran.  
"You shouldn't have done that." The man said menacingly, recovering quicker than Enjolras. "You really shouldn't have done that. BOYS!" At the alley opening, two boys came out, cracking their knuckles, clearly the man's backup. In one wild moment, Enjolras was reminded of bad gangster movies, and was almost tempted to laugh at the absurd mess of it all. He only managed a strangled sort of cough, however, because the orange light from the street behind him was reflected in the blade of the man's knife.  
Enjolras was not the type to cower and run away from a situation, but, for the second time today, he found himself speechless. Without further ado, he spun on his heel and ran. He could hear them chasing after him, screaming and threatening him. He tried to manoeuvre the streets with people, but there weren't any crowds to get lost in wandering the streets of Mons at 10 pm. So in the end he simply ran for it, the only conscious thought was to avoid heading home, it was not as if he was stupid enough to lead the gang to his front door!

Although he knew he was being followed, he also had the distinct impression that he was also being watched by someone else, he shook off his paranoia. He still had the gang on his heels.  
After a few minutes, that felt like eternity to Enjolras, the gang had stopped following him. He kept his speed to a light jog, and merged with the group of Shapians** he saw heading out of a bar on their way to the next, luckily these Shapians were Germans and Scandinavians, so his blond hair would not stick out in the crowd.  
He followed them down a few streets, but when they all gathered outside the next bar, he broke of and walked to the end of the street.  
Rounding the corner, he froze. At the other end of the street, he could see the attacker. But as Enjolras was freezing up, the attacker was turning to face his side of the road. Enjolras' mind was screaming bloody murder, and a hand had sneaked onto his shoulder and was dragging him into the little crevice between two houses and halfway concealed behind a bush. Luckily he was still too shocked to scream, because although his kidnapper had long blond hair and a knit hat pulled over her forehead to conceal her black eyebrows, there was no mistaking who the girl was.  
"Éponine!?"  
"Shut up, if you value your life!" She pulled a hat out of nowhere and pulled it over his head, before unzipping his red hoodie.

"But, Éponine, you- What are you doing?" He stuttered, as she slipped his hoodie of his shoulders and rolled it up around his camera.  
"I said _shut up!" _she hissed back at him. And proceeded to throw his hoodie, camera and bag into the dark corner behind him, he had a distinct feeling he would never get the smell of piss off of them ever again. His mind was reeling, it had only been a few seconds since he was running around on his own, but now the silly little girl that always ran around Marius like his little puppy was _here_, and she was _blond_. "But, you're _here?! And your hair?! _What-_" _but before he could get another word out, she had wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers.

Enjolras would still be pondering over this when he got home later that night.  
Her lips had crashed into his, and with only a second of hesitation, he had felt his lips moving with hers. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to be pressed into a dark corner, kissing Éponine. It was the first time he could remember ever just letting his mind shut off. His arms wrapped around her and pulled her even closer, hands moving up her back to cup her neck, and his tongue slipping into her mouth. He could hear her surprised gasp, and the sound made him groan into her mouth and clutch her tighter. It was bliss, and he didn't want it to stop. It did though. They broke for air, and he moved his mouth to her jaw and down her neck, wanting to taste all of her.

"Stop."

"Hm?" He barely heard her over the rushing in his ears. She pushed at his shoulder and he pulled away. "I said stop! They are gone now." It took him a second to remember why he was in this situation anyway. He let his arms drop and adjusted his jeans. Éponine politely didn't comment, but went to recover his things from the ground. "Here." She held out the slightly damp possessions, and he accepted them. They did smell like piss. She gave him an apologetic shrug and removed his hat and her wig. Not offering any explanations as to why she even owned a wig in the first place, and shoved them into her own messenger bag.

"I'm sorry." He said. He was not quite sure what for. For kissing her? For not shutting up? For interfering earlier that day? Maybe all three.

"Yeah." She said. _That's all she has to say?_ He thought. His mind was still reeling from that kiss. Fuck, all he wanted to do was to press her up against the wall and continue the exploration of her collarbones with his mouth. He mentally shook himself; such fantasies would not help him calm down.

"Thank you, Éponine." He said instead.

"No problem," she said, and hesitated, as if she felt the need to explain why she had helped him. She changed her mind however, and changed the topic. "What did you do to piss off 'Parnasse anyway?"

"'Parnasse? He was the one with the hat?" She nodded. "I found him in an alley, attacking a girl, so I took a picture of him and rescued the girl." He had to check the picture the minute he got home. But for now he had more pressing matters to settle his curiosity with.

"Wait, 'Parnasse? As in Montparnasse? As in Patron-Minette?" She nodded "yeah, that was 'Parnasse and clacesous I thi-"

"And you call him _'Parnasse_?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. A common occurrence when talking to him apparently. "Yes, we go back." She hesitated and her eyes softened. "He- he wasn't always like this. Before he started dealing pot, he was actually quite charming and sweet." She halfway smiled at the memory, before snapping back to the present, her face hardening making her look 10 years older. She searched his face for something, confirmation of some sort. Apparently she found it, for the next thing she said sounded like it was difficult to say.

"I was walking back to McDonalds when I ran into Azelma, my sister, and she told me what 'Parnasse was up to. So I figured whoever saved my sister probably needed to be saved themselves, and I followed you here… Ha, I don't even really know why I am telling you this. I guess it is because you won't tell anyone about tonight." She didn't ask, but stated it with certainty. As if she knew him. It confused him a great deal. Because he had not planned on telling anyone about this ever. Well, at least not Éponine's involvement anyway. But it greatly unsettled him that he _liked_ the way she could read him. This conversation was too civil and _intimate_, and he needed to put them back on familiar turf.

"Why do you care if I tell people anyway? Are you afraid that _Marius,_" he spit out the name, "will find out that we kissed? Because, newsflash Éponine, he has a _girlfriend,_ he is _in love, _and he _never _loved you, and he _never_ will!" _but I do_.

Éponine slapped him. He was shocked. Not that she had slapped him, he kind of expected that. He was shocked to realise just how much he cared about her. _Love? I barely know her!_ But it was true. It explained every time he had seen her with Marius and his inside had twisted, or how he noticed little things, or how he cared about her opinion, he got angry when she said 'Parnasse like a pet name, and that kiss-

He was snapped out of his epiphany by Éponine who pushed him against the wall again.

"You stupid fuck! Don't you think I fucking know that!? Who the fuck do you think you are anyway?"

"I'm just saying that you shouldn't waste your time on a tosser like Marius, when you could do so much better than him!" He shouted back, trying to make amends, or at least explain, his wicked words.

"Yeah, like who? 'Parnasse? You? Ha! As if. Get off your big horse and pull your head out of our ass! No one will ever want me, just like no one will ever want you. You make me sick."

She spun on her heel and ran off down the street, melting into the shadows. He was angry, and hurt, and irrational. Love made him irrational, and he didn't like it. Without further thought, he shouted after her the one thing he knew would hurt the most.

"Cosette's hair colour isn't that blond, so the wig won't get you any closer to Marius' affection!"

He hated himself.

When he finally got to bed that night, he racked his brain for what he could do to make Éponine forgive him. And for once, he had nothing better to think about than Éponine.

_eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_

* * *

AN

Sorry!? I feel mean!

I have not even started the next chapter, but if I do not upload this soon, I will lose interest!

This has not been beta'd

This is set a couple of years ago, when Belgium didn't have a government and they were talking about splitting it between France and Netherlands, so I thought why not.

* Pat the monkeys head: In Mons there is a small monkey statue that people pat on the head for luck. (google it if you want to know more)

** Shapians are the people that work/go to school/lives on SHAPE, the NATO base in Belgium between Mons and Soignies. They could be from any country, but we Scandinavians partied a lot with the Germans in Mons, so…(I used to be one of them last year.)


End file.
